


A collection of gore

by Venus1987



Category: Original Work
Genre: Body Horror, Chronic Pain, Gen, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Heavy Angst, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Major Character Injury, Not Beta Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Why Did I Write This?, Writing Exercise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:55:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21864682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Venus1987/pseuds/Venus1987
Summary: Some short stories based on one-word prompts.
Kudos: 3





	A collection of gore

It's an odd feeling. That's the only thing she could call it: odd. It was odd having clothes getting stuck on leaves and stems when she tried to undress. It was odd having the plants curl around her protectively. It was odd, and painful, watching bloody stems break through soft flesh. 

They seem to draw nutrition from the mess too. As the sharp tips break through, some of the blood slowly makes its way down and drips to the floor, or stains her clothes. But, some of the blood gets dragged back towards the wound and gets absorbed. It was such a fascinating thing; watching the nearly transparent stems turn a rich red color. 

It colored the flowers too. It was so rare for any of the bulbs to open up, and thank goodness for that. The sight was stunningly macabre, but at a cost. The few times a year that she bloomed, as she liked to call it, she could barely move. Even summoning up enough energy to make a finger twitch was a monumental task. A living, breathing, flowerbed. The only thing she could do those days was to curse her illness. Trapped in her body as tears tickled her cheeks. 

The doctors didn't have an explanation. 'It just happens sometimes' and 'there's nothing we can do' was all she got. No words of comfort or hope. Just shrugs and a wave of the hand. She would die young, of course. That's just the way it was. And until she did there was nothing to do but to grin and bear it. 

After nearly twenty years, she has learnt to live with it. Well, learnt to hide and ignore it. She wore baggy clothes that were at least two sizes too big. Most of her wardrobe was black or red; easier to conceal accidents. 

As a child she had tried to cut the stems. She only had to try it once to convince herself to never do it again. As the scissors severed her from the plant a sharp pain snaked its way up her arm. It felt like someone was dragging a knife along her veins and leaving behind a trail of liquid fire. She would never know how she had ended up curled into a ball on the floor. She figured she had blacked out from the pain. Maybe it was her body's attempt at conserving energy to heal itself. 

She had never really dated anyone, or had any friends. Children can be awfully cruel. Most would shy away from her and avoid touching her at any cost. That was fine. Not a great situation, but fine. The brave ones were worse. Far, far worse. They would get a kick out of tugging on the exposed plants. The pain wasn't nearly as bad as trying to cut them, thankfully. Still wasn't pleasant though. The sensation made her dizzy, like she was falling but not knowing which way was up and down. 

It's funny how even a sick body adapts. After a few attacks from her classmates, the stems grew thorns. They were thin, but long, and had a more opaque color than the clear or light red color of the rest of the plant. It shouldn't have gotten her in trouble, but the teachers never liked her much. Too quiet, they always said. Maybe that's why she had gotten in trouble when her body fought back. 

It had been a day like any other. The sky was clear with clouds almost added as an afterthought. Since it was the middle of spring the weather was pleasant; not as uncomfortably hot as summer, but not as freezing as winter. There was nothing in the air indicating a major event was going to happen. 

The first recess had gone smoothly. She had even been allowed to join some of the other girls in playing games. After all these years it was hard to remember the specifics of that first recess. Funny, such a thing seemed so important at the time, but now she could see it for what it was; the calm before the storm. 

Next recess was when all hell broke loose. She had been sitting somewhere alone, minding her own business. What exactly she had been doing was lost to time. All that matters is that one of the boys had grown bored. That's probably why he had made his way over to her, sneaking up and tugging on a stem that started at her left elbow and peeked through the back of her collar. The usual dizziness overwhelmed her, but didn't last as long as usual. It was only later when she was sitting in front of a teacher that she got the full story. The stem had wrapped itself around the boy's hand and sunk its thorns into the skin. 

Everyone stayed away from her after that, for better or worse. 

Of course, that's a long time ago now. Why her mind had circled back to that memory was beyond her. Then again, it was hard to think like this. She was sitting curled up in one corner of her dark bedroom, hands tangled in her hair and knees drawn up against her chest. Holding such a position would have taken a decent amount of energy, but the stems were holding her hands and legs in place. She didn't need to do a thing. Not that she would be able to move even if she tried. 

It had started out like a normal bloom. Sure, her energy had drained away faster than usual, but she chalked it up to lack of sleep or something like that. The bed was so far away so she had just dropped to the floor. It wouldn't really matter in the end. 

As she idly observed how the plants shifted and grew a feeling of dread grew along with them. No flowers were coming out. Instead, thinner stems were wrapping around her appendages, covering her body in a layer of foliage. Panic was giving her energy, but struggling against the bonds was useless. She wasn't able to struggle for long anyways. 

This was it. Having run out of space on her skin, the plants were now growing inside of her, rupturing muscles and organs. The stems around her throat tightened in one sharp motion, cutting off the flow of oxygen to the brain. At least it made the searing and pounding pain fade away. She felt so fuzzy that her body didn't even try to fight against the choke hold. Maybe it knew that the time had come and that it was better to leave this world with as little pain as possible.

As the plants drew the remaining life force out of her body, the flowers spread their ruby petals one last time.


End file.
